A Petal in the Wind
by Mrfipp
Summary: Rose stayed with the Doctor, but wonders what that means for her and her future. Atypical Series 3 AU.


Fipp: I'm actually surprised that I'm writing this because, to be totally honest, I don't like Rose Tyler very much. To put it briefly, I found her relationship with Ten unbearably smug, making Series 2 the worst in the show's history for me, and I feel like her use as a character ultimately did some long term harm to the show as a whole.

However, I found myself writing a story in which she is the main character.

The reason for this is a sort of response to the number of AU Series 3 stories in which Rose manages to stay with the Doctor. In those stories, Rose and Ten end up confessing their feelings to each other, Martha's role is reduced to supporting character, and the duo live happily ever after. None of them though deal with the inevitable issue that one day Rose would say goodbye to the Doctor.

I thought I'd give that a shot then. Despite my feeling regarding Rose, I've tried to as respectful to the character as I could, though I still don't think this is the best thing I've written.

**A Petal in the Wind**

She had almost slipped, almost lost her grip, and was sent flying into the void to join the Cybermen and the Daleks, all of who screamed as they flew past her. Spending an eternity in the Void is something she didn't want to experience, but she was able to hold on just long enough for the loud roaring air to settle down, and the portal closed and the bright light faded.

Rose found herself then leaning against the wall, her ears slightly ringing from the loud wind. Looking up, she saw the Doctor run a hair through his hair, catching his breath. He looked at the wall that had sucked in countless Cybermen and Daleks into a realm between the universes. He gave it several moments, before turning back to her, and widely smiled. Laughing, they then ran towards each other, before embracing each other, him spinning around before letting back to the ground.

After stepping back from the Doctor, all the sense of accomplishment and victory had vanished.

"Mum!" Rose cried, running to the large blank wall, slamming her hands to it. "Mum!" She futilely struck the wall several more times before turning back to the Doctor. "We have to get back there! My Mum's still stuck there!"

The Doctor stood there, mouth slightly open, trying to say something but unsure on how to say it. It took several long and agonizing moments before he responded. "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so, so sorry."

Rose stared at him, shaking her head. "No, there has to be something we can do. We can't just leave her there!"

His shoulders lowered, and his eyes dropped, and his head shook. "I'm sorry, Rose, we can't physically pass through the dimensional barriers without the risk of breaking them. We could release the Daleks and the Cybermen, or even worse, destroy not just one universe, but both of them. We can't do that. She's trapped. You'll never see her again."

And with that news, Rose was unable to hold back her tears.

000

"I think I have an idea," the Doctor had said as they walked back to the TARDIS. It was strange how empty the Torchwood base seemed now, after the chaos that had happened only minutes ago. "I think I can let you have a goodbye."

She didn't want a goodbye. She wanted her mother back.

But it didn't seem she had much choice.

The Doctor explained that they would be sending a mental link of her, using the power given off by a dying star. Or at least that's what she understood; there was a fair bit of techno-babble that she really didn't understand. He tried to make it sound funny, maybe as a way to get her to laugh, but she didn't feel too much like laughing.

It took a while, at least for Jackie. What had only been hours for her and the Doctor, but had been months her mother, Pete and Mickey. The image of her stood in the TARDIS console room, but according to Jackie, they were on a beach in Norway, which when translated into English, meant "Bad Wolf Bay". The revelation was bitter to her.

As much as it broke her heart, she enjoyed these final moments with her because she'd never have any like this again.

Jackie said that she'd missed Rose terribly, and had cried for many weeks after they were separated, but Mickey and Pete had done very well for her.

Even with the dwindling time, Rose cherished this conversation, but when Jackie mentioned that she had been pregnant, she found all words suddenly refused to leave her mouth. She was going to be a big sister (she's not sure if this makes her a half-sister or not) to someone she would never meet.

"Mum, I-" she finally managed to get out., only for Jackie's image to fade.

"The connection," the Doctor said from the console. "I lost it. I'm sorry, Rose."

Rose didn't really hear him though, she could only stare at the empty spot where her mother had stood, knowing that would be the last time she would ever see her.

"Rose." She heard the Doctor approach her, his footsteps echoing on the grates. "I-"

There was then a feminine gasp, and the mood and tension of the moment was ruined by the appearance of a very loud, and cross, red-haired woman in a wedding dress.

"What?"

000

The woman was named Donna Nobel, and it was her wedding day, and it was Christmas. It would have been a truly special event had it not been for the giant spider-lady, the Queen of the Racnoss, and the fact that Donna's soon-to-be-husband tried to feed her to it.

In the end, the Doctor was forced to destroy the Queen, and her children. He'd not been happy about it.

"It was the only way," he explained, as if he was trying to convince himself rather than them.

They dropped Donna off home, to deal with the aftermath of this day, and they floated the TARDIS above London, watching the snow settle down on the city below.

"Do you think we could land?" she asked.

"Land?" he asked back.

"Yeah, just down on the ground," she replied, rubbing her eyes. "I think I just need to take a walk, or something."

Saying nothing, the Doctor nodded, and pulled some levers and pressed buttons. The TARDIS groaned and moments later they were down on the ground, parked on a street corner.

"You need anything?" he asked as she walked out the door.

"No," she replied. "I just need to clear my head. It's just been a big day. I think a walk around the city will do me some good."

"I understand," the Doctor replied. "If you need me, I'll be right here."

Rose weakly smiled, and began to aimlessly wander around the city.

000

The aimless wandering didn't remain aimless for long, and she soon found herself at the complex that held her mother's flat. Only, it wasn't her mother's flat anymore.

She knocked on the door, and a man she never met before answered.

"May I help you?" he said. He was wearing a Santa hat, and she could smell eggnog on his breath. Behind him, she could see several other people laughing, and talking, and the sound of festive music. A Christmas party.

"Um," she stammered, unsure about what she was seeing. "Do, you live here?" she finally asked.

"Yeah," the man asked.

"For how long?"

The man seemed to think about this for a few moments. "About a few months at least. You know, ever since that whole ghost-robot thing."

"A few months?" she asked, her voice suddenly finding itself weaker. "What happened to the people who lived here before you?"

"I don't know," the man answered, removing his hat. "From what I heard, they died during that whole thing. It's a shame, from what I've been told, they were nice people. I'm sorry, were they friends of yours?"

"Yeah, you could say something like that…" Rose replied, before turning away and soon heading back down the stairs, ignoring the man calling her back.

000

Eventually, she made her way back to the TARDIS. Stepping back inside, she dropped her coat onto the railing, and sat down in the chair. The Doctor was leaning against one of the console's panels.

"I'm dead, I think," she said aloud. She's not sure if she's telling the Doctor, or just confirming this to herself. "I went back to where we used to live, and the guy there said that the family who lived there before died during the Cybermen attack."

"I know," the Doctor says, not looking away from a computer screen.

"You do?" she asks, looking up to him. "How."

"I did a bit of research while you were out." He stood up straight, and turned the screen towards her. The image is her death certificate. "Legally, you, and your mother were killed during the Torchwood incident. As far the Britsh government is concerned, Rose Tyler's body was never found, and thus is deceased, fallen in battle."

Rose stares at the image of a document that has marked the end of her life and laughed humorlessly. "So, that's it? That's what the Devil meant? My death in battle was actually just a paper sitting on some bureaucrat's desk?"

The Doctor frowned. "Better than the alternative. I mean, if this was a book, or a movie, or something, I think I'd feel a bit cheated, but it's not. It's real life, and you are alive." He moved away from the console, and knelt down in front of her. "It's only a piece of paper. It doesn't really mean anything. Blimey, I once had a friend who was technically dead because the Web of Time said she was."

"Really?" she asked. "How?"

"Well," he crooked his head to the side. "She was supposed to die when an airship crashed and burned in 1930, but I managed to save her by riding the back or a vortisaur."

"Sounds complicated."

"It was. But we managed to sort through it. On the large scale, history wouldn't care if one human life survives such a terrific event. Though, it was a bit complicated; people who never existed, me getting possessed by an old nursery rhyme, and her stabbing me in the chest with a blade made of melted down metal from my TARDIS, which had just tried to kill her mind you."

Rose stared at the Doctor for several moments. "Sounds even more complicated."

"A bit." He then stood up and operated the console, and soon the console column was moving, and they were back in the vortex.

"What was her name?" she asked, but the Doctor didn't answer.

After meeting Sarah Jane Smith, she's wondered about who else had traveled with him, and why he never talks about any of them. Maybe she can take this opportunity to find out something.

The Doctor seemed hesitant, but eventually he turned around to face her. "Her name was Charlotte Pollard, Charley to her friends.".

"I bet she was nice. You only pick the best."

"Oh, she was." The Doctor began to rub his hand. "We we close; had all sorts of adventures together, even went to another universe where time didn't exist. That wasn't a pleasant place to be."

Rose considered asking about this other universe, but decided that was something to save for another time. He didn't talk about his past too often, so maybe it was best to keep things simple.

"What happened to her? Where'd she go?" Well, maybe not so simple, this could be potentially very difficult.

The Doctor did nothing at first, he simply stared at her, maybe thinking. He then took a deep breath. 'While we were in the other universe, we met a friend, name C'rizz. He ended up traveling with us, and made it back to this universe with us." He then smiled, and laugh. "Oh the three of us had all sorts of time, best of mates we were." Then promptly, the smile faded away. "Then C'rizz died. After that, Charley decided she'd had enough. Left me a note as a goodbye."

"I'm sorry…"

"So am I…"

"Do you miss them?"

"I miss all of them when they leave."

There was a heavy moment of silence between them. Rose wasn't too sure what she could say.

"I think we need a holiday," the Doctor said, turning back to the console. "We still haven't done Barcelona yet, have we?"

000

They didn't end up in Barcelona, but instead right in the middle of some sort of civil war on a distant planet where swords that shot lightning were a perfectly ordinary choice of weapon.

000

They made it back to Earth eventually, and it was some months later.

It looked different, felt different. Not the way it had after the first time she returned after traveling in the TARDIS. She realized that there was truly nothing here for her anymore.

No Mum. No Mickey. No job. No friends. Nothing at all to keep her here at all. It frightened her, to not have any connection to her own time anymore. With the exception of the TARDIS, there is nowhere in the universe she feels she has a place anymore, and that scares her more than anything.

Right before the Bad Wolf, she told Mickey there had been nothing left here for her. Now that was really true, she can't help but be ashamed of herself for saying that; there was something for her to go back to, she just didn't really see it too clearly then.

The sight of London, the Earth, isn't something she wants to deal with. She asks the Doctor to take her as many alien planets as possible.

She doesn't feel like she can face it for now.

000

After learning about Charely and C'rizz, Rose tries to get more out of the Doctor, about the people he'd travel with before her.

He manages to always avoid the question, or turn it around somehow. Something to avoid talking about his former friends, and she wonders why that is. Did they all die, or leave him is terribly saddening ways?

This is another thing she doesn't want to think about.

000

They do make it back to her own time eventually, and she reads a newspaper about how a hospital had vanished.

Curious about how this happened, they of course went back a day to put themselves right in the middle of action to see what had happened.

They meet Martha Jones. There's also a vampire with a bendy straw, a Judoon platoon on the moon, and almost everyone in the hospital suffocates.

After everything is said and done, Rose convinces the Doctor to let Martha travel with them.

She rather likes Martha; she's very kind, and smart, and an actual doctor (Rose sometimes doubts the if the Doctor has an actual medical degree (but for some reason there's a degree in cheese making he's trying to get)). It's also nice to have another girl around.

000

One day they find themselves fighting against aliens known as the Voord ("I'd almost forgotten about them," the Doctor had said). She and Martha eventually got separated from the Doctor, and are left wandering around a partially-sunken temple.

"How do we get out of this?" Martha asked, as Rose looked at the green-tinted water lapping at the ancient stones. She laughed. "Maybe we can call the Doctor and have him give us a lift."

"Actually," Rose said, turning around towards Martha. "The TARDIS actually does have a phone. I think we could give it a shot, not like it could hurt." She digs around in her pockets, only to find nothing. Ever since Torchwood, she now notices, she doesn't seem to bother with her mobile too much anymore. There was no more reason to really have one.

"Here." Martha handed over her own mobile. Luckily, there was service, maybe the TARDIS was close enough, and she tried the Doctor's number.

They got the answering machine. Rose left a message, asking him to not be dipped in acid, or shot, or sink to the bottom of the sea, and try and find them from their trapped location.

She sighed and hung up, then noticed the image on the screen.

"Who are these?" she asked.

"Hm?" Martha answered, taking her mobile back. "Oh, that's my family." She gave a small sigh. "That's my mum, my dad, my brother, Leo, my sister, Tish, and me."

"Is that so?" Rose says, looking over Martha's shoulder. She doesn't see it at first, but she recognizes Martha, but a bit younger, maybe her late-teens. "When was this taken?"

Martha didn't say anything at first, she just looked picture. "A long while ago."

"I can see that," Rose said. "Why not something more recent though?"

"This was the last photo we took as a family. My parents got divorced a few years ago, and things haven't exactly been pleasant since then."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and from then on there was always some sort of argument. Sometimes I think they got into arguments just for the sake of arguing. Usually I ended up stuck in the middle, always trying to keep some sort of peace." She closed the mobile and slipped it back into her pocket. "I'd actually just gotten myself out of another one when I met you and the Doctor in the alleyway." She took a deep breath. "That's actually one of the things I really like about traveling with you two, that I don't have to deal with them every day."

Rose bites her bottom lip, and thinks about the day when she discovered that her parents' marriage wasn't as perfect as it was made out to be.

"That's understandable," she said. "But, I don't think you should take them for granted."

"I know. It's just-"

"No, seriously. It's your family, and you only get one. Once they're gone, they're gone forever."

Martha took several steps towards Rose. "I'm sorry, is your family…"

Rose shook her head. "No, they're still alive. But, I'll never see them again. There's really not much back home for me anymore."

"Is that why you're traveling with the Doctor? Because you don't have anywhere else to go?"

Rose opened her mouth to answer, but found difficulty in giving an answer.

Luckily, the water began to bubble and a small submarine rose from the water. The hatch then opened up, and the Doctor, wearing a bright yellow dive suit popped out.

"Oh, there you two are!" he said with a wide smile, pushing the face mask off his head. "You would not believe what happens when you take an electomagnet to a depth charge." He then frowned. "Nothing good, I can tell you that."

He helped both Rose and Martha back into the submarine and proceeded with the rest of the adventure. Rose however doesn't really pay attention to what happens afterword, all she can do is think about Martha's last question.

000

While inside the TARDIS, nothing is wrong, but the in the next second, the TARDIS shakes, the light flicker on and off, there are some sparks coming off the controls, and it seems like the column is about to explode. Just as suddenly as everything went wrong, everything goes back to normal, like nothing had happened.

Except the Doctor now has longer scraggly hair with a matching beard, and his suit looks like it hasn't been washed in a long time.

"Finally!" he says , wrapping his arms around them. "It has been so good to see you two again! I mean, actually see you two move around and not stand around like statues!"

The Doctor explains that they were hit with a "Time Storm". Rose really doesn't know what that means, but from all the technobabble he spouts later she understands that it made time slower for him while everything is normal for her and Martha.

"So let me guess this straight," Martha said, eying the console to make sure it didn't explode. "You got trapped in some sort of, I don't know, dip in time, and as a result, both Rose and I couldn't move?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Well, not really. You were moving at the same speed, it's just I was experiencing it from a much slower perspective."

Rose tilts her head, looking over the Doctor's raggedy appearance. "So, just how long were you stuck like that?"

"Let's see," the Doctor says, stroking his bead. "I say, I don't know, maybe about ten years."

Martha almost chokes on air and Rose can merely stare at him with wide eyes.

"Ten years?" Martha asks, her voice shrill.

"Give or take a month."

That doesn't make it any less shocking, and it takes a while for them to really understand it. Ten years? In this room? That's a bit less than half their lives.

But than again, Rose reminded herself, the Doctor is a Time Lord. What's ten years to a person who has lived hundreds of years? A man who can simply rebuild his entire body in the event of death? Ten years for him would probably be a couple weeks of boredom for her.

It also reminds her that she's lost track of her own age. She think that maybe she's still nineteen, but she also thinks she could be twenty-one. The reminder of this makes her seem a bit smaller than she felt before.

They laugh when they mention that the Doctor should take a shower since he smells, but it stops when they say he should keep the beard.

He doesn't like beards, he says. They're just not him.

000

"Hey, you okay?" the Doctor asks one night, finding her sitting in the garden. It's a beautiful room, filled with all sorts of plants that she'd never seen anywhere else before, and the night sky, which is somehow present inside the room, just pulls it altogether.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answers, but she knows it's a weak response.

"You sure?" he says back, sitting down next to her on the bench. "Because to me it looks like you've been out of it for a while, like you're not all here."

She fiddles with the ends of her sleeves for a bit, thinking up an answer to give, or at least one she wants to give. Eventually she comes up with one. "Do you think you'll ever end up anyplace?"

"What do you mean?" he replies, looking curious.

"I mean, like, you spend all your time going through time and space, but you never really have anywhere in mind to go."

The Doctor looks at her, and with that look she can see he's giving this serious consideration.

"No, I don't," he finally answers. "Maybe, a long time ago I did. When I was younger, I used to think that maybe one day I would go back to Gallifrey, to be boring and collect dust with the rest of the Time Lords. But then the Time War happened..." He takes a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling of stars. Rose wonder if they're a particular cluster of stars, or if they're if they're randomly generated. "There's no where for me to go now, just why not wander?"

"Think you'll ever find one?"

"Maybe. I could retire one day, set the TARDIS down somewhere, maybe Earth most likely, and not do anything. But I can't see that happening for a very long time."

"What will you do until then?"

"Do what I've always done. Just make my own way through the universe." He looks back down to her. "What brings all this on?"

She leans forward and places her head in her hands. "I just want to know what my place in the universe is." She says this softly enough that she's not sure if he's heard her. He does though, and he places a hand on her shoulder.

It helps, but not as much as she would like.

Where does she really belong?

000

Terabil Gamma is a trading planet, a rest stop between a dozen larger planets that that often trade goods a other such things with each other. It is a cooking pot of various races and cultures, and you can't go ten feet without overhearing a conversation told in a totally different language that the previous one, though Rose could never tell this because of the TARDIS translation matrix.

It is on this planet that the Doctor, Rose, and Martha put a stop to the Terrible Zodin's plan to spread the Krynoid to the varying planets. It's a desperate affair, but the Krynoids all end up burning in the sun, but Zodin manages to escape, vowing that she will one day return. The victory would have been impossible had it not been for the assistance of some of the trade regulators, who had put their lives on the line for the their planets.

The Doctor had suggested one more visit to their main office. Normally he doesn't like goodbyes, and would usually try to get away without being noticed, but he wants to make sure they've deleted the last of Zodin's computer virus from their software.

"I think I'll stay here, if you don't mind," Rose says, standing in the TARDIS doors. "Today was a bit rough, so I think I'll take a nap or something."

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked, trying to hide his disappointment.

"Yeah, I'm sure. You two have fun, okay?"

Reluctantly, he agrees, though perks up a bit when he leaves with Martha. She notices this as they vanish around the corner, towards their destination. They get along well, and she likes that, makes what she's about to do easier, knowing he'll have someone around.

000

"Right, everything is good to go!" the Doctor cheerily says, entering the TARDIS and heading right to the console, Martha shutting the door behind them. "Now that everything is said and done, how about we get out of here and see where else we can do. Martha, mind telling Rose that we're back?"

"Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes," Martha says, walking towards the door that lead into the rest of the TARDIS.

The Doctor flicks triggers, pushes buttons and twists knobs, entering co-ordinations that that will hopefully send them where he wants to go. Probably won't, but that's okay, no harm in not knowing where you're going.

That's when he comes across a note sitting right on the jury rigged laptop. Curious, he picks it up and reads it.

Minutes later, Martha returns to the console room, alone. "She wasn't in her room, maybe she was in the kitchen, or the hundreds of other rooms you've got in..." She stops when she sees the Doctor, sitting in his chair, slumped over and holding a note in his hand. "Is something wrong?"

The Doctor stares blankly at the note for a few moments before her snap back to attention, jumping to his feet to fiddle with the controls. "Oh, it's nothing, nothing at all. Now, how about we got to Italy? There's a small shop somewhere in the sixties that makes a good gelato!" he says, grinning, doing a bad attempt of faking a ready eagerness.

Martha stares at the Doctor, still not buying what he has to offer. "Doctor," she says, firmly. "What's the matter?"

The expression on the Doctor's face falls, and he looks back down to the note still in his hand.

"It's Rose," he says, his voice low. "She's gone."

"Gone?" Martha asks, looking back to the hall door before turning back to the Doctor. "What do you mean gone? She's somewhere in the TARDIS, isn't she?"

"No, she's not." He shakes his head. "She's left." Raising his hand, he held up the note. "Says it all right here."

"Well, shouldn't we go find her?" Martha makes her way to the door.

"Don't bother," the Doctor says, causing Martha to stop and turning back to him, a questioning look on her face. "She said she not to go looking for her."

"So, you're not even going to try?" Martha tries.

The Doctor's response was to reach over and flick a switch on the console. The center column began to rise and fall, and the scrapping, wheezing noise that could only be a time machine taking off sounded off. They were leaving the planet behind.

There is a heavy silence between them, filled only with the sounds of the TARDIS to fill the void. The Doctor randomly flicks various switches and, not for the first time, she wonders if he actually knows what he's doing.

"Are you sure about this? Leaving her?" she asks, hesitantly.

"It's what she wants," the Doctor says, looking down at the console before taking a deep breath and turning back to her. "Sometimes, people leave Martha. That's just part of life." Forlornly, he glances back to the controls. "Sometimes, you just need to let go." He presses a button, and off they go to somewhere else.

000

_Dear Doctor,_

_If you're reading this, then that means I'm gone. Sounds cliché, I know._

_The reason I'm leaving is hard to explain, I'm actually not too sure about it myself, but ever since the Daleks and the Cybermen, I've been feeling lost. It just feels that everything is so big now, that I really don't belong anywhere anymore, so I need to find my place. You'd want to try and help me, and that's one of the things I love about you, but I don't think you can help me with this; I think this is something I need to do own my own._

_You still have Martha, so be good to her, okay? She'll take care of you._

_Love always,_

_Rose_

_000_

Rose looked behind her back towards the city, back where she left the TARDIS, Martha, and the Doctor. Her heart was heavy in her chest, but this was the right thing for her to do, no matter how hard it was. Raising the strap of her duffel bag over her should and walked right through the entrance way of the spaceport.

She'd pack some clothes, her phone, some other necessities, and a smack bag of gold. She was certain that the Doctor wouldn't mind that she borrowed some, she actually doubted he really saw any value in it, and it would certainly help her in case she needed some quick cash.

An hour later she was on a space ship that was coursed for one of the surrounding planets, which was home to one of the largest cities in this part of the solar system. Maybe she would find what she was looking for there?

Not knowing what would happen, Rose was out to make her own in the universe.


End file.
